Black Boys Feel Less Safe in White Neighborhoods, Study Shows

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The New York Police Department’s 69th Precinct station in Brooklyn. A new study found that African-American boys feel less safe in neighborhoods that are whiter than the ones they ordinarily inhabit.CreditCreditMark Abramson for The New York Times

By Sandra E. Garcia

Aug. 14, 2018

Many black boys have been racially profiled, arrested or even killed in white neighborhoods because the residents were afraid of them. A new study suggests the boys are afraid, too.

The study, which was released on Monday, found that “African-American boys experience a decreased sense of safety” when in neighborhoods with a larger white population than areas they normally frequent. Black boys “will expect increased scrutiny, surveillance and even direct targeting as they traverse whiter spaces,” the study found. Black girls did not report feeling significantly less safe in such areas.

To carry out the study, researchers at Ohio State University gave smartphones enabled with GPS technology to 506 black youths in Columbus ages 11 to 17, 250 of whom were boys. Five times a day, the children were sent a small survey that asked them if they felt safe in the place they were in.

“What is happening on the news, along with common knowledge, may be heightening black kids’ concerns,” said Christopher Browning, a professor of sociology at Ohio State and one of the researchers who conducted the study.

The study said that “recent media focus on instances of police and vigilante violence has brought national attention to the potential dangers faced by African-American males as they navigate everyday routines.”

The researchers also noted the “social psychological challenges associated with navigating environments that are compositionally distinct with respect to race.”

Dolores Acevedo-Garcia, a professor of human development and social policy at Brandeis University and the director of the university’s Institute for Child, Youth and Family Policy, said that issues that start in the home may make a black child feel less safe in a whiter neighborhood.

“Parents teach their kids how to play down their race and show them ways to help their children navigate different neighborhoods and environments, sending the message to their children that they have to be vigilant in those neighborhoods,” Dr. Acevedo-Garcia said on Tuesday.

She said that children internalize the methods they are taught to navigate different neighborhoods and that it “reflects poorly on the decisions we have made as a society.”

In contrast, when white children leave their houses, they are more often going to places that look like their home neighborhoods. “Whites are more likely to self-segregate and keep their experiences confined to what looks like their own neighborhoods,” Dr. Browning said.

“Often black kids have to travel outside of their own neighborhoods for other resources,” he said. “If they need schools of adequate quality, a good grocery store — often not all of those are available in their immediate neighborhood. They have to go to more affluent neighborhoods that are potentially whiter.”